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Conventional wisdom has it that there’s a lot of distrust between China and Japan. There’s also a lot of distrust between Japan and Korea (North and South). And there are Chinese-Korean relations (North and South) which aren’t that easy to characterize.

For ordinary people, there seem to be two worlds. There’s the real world, where you meet people – when travelling for work, and when travelling for fun.

And there’s the internet world.

The difference between these two worlds: the internet is highly politicized. That has been true for the printed press, too, but it never seemed to influence people as much as does the online world. Maybe the internet gives people the feeling that they play a role of their own in shaping it. This may actually be true. But the internet is shaping them in turn. When experienced, skilled propagandists and agenda sellers appear on the scene, frequently unrecognized and unrecognizable, chances are that they will manufacture consent or dissent, according to their goals, commercial or political.

Newspaper articles have always angered people, even in pre-digital times. Once in a while, someone would actually put pen or typewriter to paper and write a letter to the editor – in the evening, or whenever he or she found the time. But more frequently, the anger would evaporate within minutes or hours. There would be no visible reader’s reaction.

The internet is quite different. Once people have joined a discussion (which is easy to do), they will stay involved for quite a while, at least mentally.

A dumb headline is enough to create a shitstorm. Try How to date Japanese women who haven’t been exposed to radiation, published by the South Korean publication „Maxim“. According to this report by the Global Post, Korean readers were quick to point [that headline] out as inappropriate given the sensitive nature of Japan’s continuing recovery after the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima disaster. But obviously, once someone is offended, this isn’t good enough, and the offended themselves need to speak out, too.

Some statistics: the Maxim editor-in-chief reportedly apologized twice. The first apology was – reportedly – widely read as another attack on Japanese dignity, rather than a real apology.

Therefore, a second apology from the editor-in-chief was needed. It still didn’t seem to read like a sincere apology. Hence, it caught more than 130 Japanese comments in one day.

Is that a lot, or is it marginal? The Japanese who wrote those over 130 comments didn’t need to speak or write Korean. Their debate was hosted by the electronic version and the Japanese-language version of the JoonAng Ilbo, one of South Korea’s top three influential newspapers, Japan Today reported on Wednesday.

Was this a worthwhile story? And how many of the Japanese who commented there were actually Japanese women?

Listening to Radio Taiwan International and KBS Seoul‘s foreign service, the unease about Shinzo Abe‘s visit to the Yasakuni Shrine is palpable. I don’t know how Japanese people feel about their prime minister’s visit, or about utterances by Japanese politicians who trivialize their country’s past warcrimes. My guess is that there are many different feelings among the Japanese – but that a majority elects politicians with these kinds of attitudes anyway.

I’m not familiar with the Yasakuni Shrine. There may be reasons to visit ancestors, no matter their past. But when a politician tries to play crimes down, or if he denies them, there is something wrong with him.

If politicians from my country were careless or disrespectful about the sufferings of victims abroad, I wouldn’t believe for a moment that such politicians could care any more about injustices that hit people at home. I wouldn’t believe that he might be able to respect my dignity, or the dignity of his and my compatriots. A politician with a flawed sense of justice wouldn’t get my vote.

The following is a translation from a Sina.com rendition of Central People’s Broadcasting Service (CPBS/China National Radio) coverage on North Korea. Links within blockquote added during translation.

CPBS news online, Beijing, December 17, via Sina.com. According to CPBS channel “Voice of China”, North Koreans from all walks of life commemorated the country’s previous leaders at Mansudae platform at the city center of Pyongyang, in front of the bronze statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. As today is the second anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong-il, the grand celebrations will continue today.

Journalists saw people clothed in quiet colors at the scene of mourning, holding flowers and looking sad, coming in to Mansudae from all directions, bowing deeply to the bronze statues, and putting the flowers in front of the statues, expressing their grief about Kim Jong-il’s death. An oath-taking ralleye will be held today for the North Korean People’s Army. So will North Korea still hold commemorations today? Xinhua’s correspondent Du Baiyu explains the latest situation:

North Korea’s People’s Army held a swearing-in ceremony on the square of Kumsusan Palace of the Sun yesterday, pleding to defend Kim Jong-un to their death, with ceremonies for the land forces, the navy, and the airforce respectively. People in charge of North Korea’s military force, troops of different ranks and cadres and students from military schools and others took part in the ceremony. Today, as the passing of previous leader Kim Jong-il is marked, the North Korean masses as well as some international organizations and consular staff etc. will go to Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, and North Korean masses will also put flowers to older bronze statues and portraits in North Korea to lay down flowers there.

Some foreign media speculate that after the demise of Jang Sung-taek, within the coverage of the commemorations, a new “Number Two” [behind Kim Jong-un] could be announced. However, [the Xinhua] journalist explains that there is no such talk about a “Number Two” personality, and that the North Korean people are simply united as one around their leader, loyal to the leader, which means loyalty to Kim Jong-un. As for the new political structure in North Korea, we may expect a report to the North Korean [Workers Party] Central Committee [or central authorities] today, and the seating order there deserves attention, as it may provide clues about the structures.

There have been many media analysts who said that the participation of the highest DPRK officials at the mourning activities today would provide the outside world with the best possible window to observe North Korea’s trends. However, Yang Xiyu, Northeast Asia issues expert at the China Institute of International Studies, sees it differently. In his view, the media misread the so-called “Number Two personality”:

Yang Xiyu: Rumours in the media, including foreign media, that Jang Song-taek was the “number two” are definitely not accurate. No matter if actually or nominally, his position wasn’t that of a number two. He was only promoted from candidate status to full membership of the politburo to full membership during Kim Jong-uns era. North Korea’s real Number-Two personality is Choe Ryong-hae, who was exceptionally promoted to permanent membership status at the politburo, while the two others are 84 and 85 years old, and their membership is of honorary nature. The only two real full members are Kim Jong-un and Choe Ryong-hae. No matter what the line-up will be like during the commemoration activities, I believe that the director of the general political bureau of the People’s Army, Choe Ryong-hae, remains North Korea’s number-two personality.

At the swearing-in ceremony, director of the general political bureau of the People’s Army, Choe Ryong-hae, read out the words: “Korea’s gunbarrels will defend Kim Jong-un, and will only accept Kim Jong-un’s arms.” And another North Korean high official said that Jang Sung-taek hadn’t been the decisionmaker about North Korea’s economy. So, has the case of Jang Sung-taek changed the economic direction of North Korea?

Yang Xiyu: North Korea’s economic policies, and economic management and optimization in particular, will not change just because of a high-ranking official’s downfall. But given that Jang Sung-taek has indeed been responsible for handling cases of economic cooperation with China, which were also contained in the official conviction of Jang, and some specifically pointed to. Therefore, the major direction of North Korea’s economic policies, including economic cooperation with China, will not change because of this downfall. But the fact that some projects of Sino-North Korean cooperation were mentioned in the conviction will at least add a lot to the political uncertainties. But these are only some individual cases, and as for the general direction, I believe that North Korea has no better choices, other than to continuously improve its systems, continuously entering market mechanisms, expanding the opening-up to the outside world. There are no better policies than these to choose from, and therefore I believe there will be no general changes in the direction of North Korean economic policies.

This year, from January to September, Chinese-North Korean trade amounted to 4.69 billion US dollars – an increase of 200 million US dollars. From August, China resumed oil supplies to North Korea. Before that, from February to July this year, Chinese oil exports to North Korea amounted to zero. Where should future relations between China and North Korea go?

Yang Xiyu: Sino-North Korean relations won’t be affected by the stepping-down or by the promotion of some individual. The development of Sino-North Korean relations follow their own rules. To be frank, China is simply too important for North Korea, so North Korea will continue to make efforts to protect the relations with China, and this won’t be affected. The biggest obstacle and negative impact on relations now is North Korea’s wrong policy of continued development of nuclear arms. We all know China’s two main strategic goals on the Korean peninsula: the first is to maintain peace and stability on the Korean pensinsula, and the second is the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. These two goals are the two sides of one coin. One won’t be achieved without achieving the other, because the possession of nuclear weapons by any party on the peninsula will make it impossible to ever usher in peace and stability. Or, conversely, we want to solve the issue of denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, for the goal of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

The fifth big state institution would be a state security committee. Analysts are quoted as saying that a double role of dealing with basic domestic and external challenges could be discerned.

Plans for a state security committee had been made or demanded since 1997, but were only now taking shape, says the article. And many other countries had similar institutions: America’s national security council (since 1947), France (since 2008), Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, and Malaysia, for example. In Japan, the establishment of a national security council was underway, too.

As of now, inter-Korea relations enter a state of war and all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol, Radio Australia quoted North Korean newsagency KCNA on March 30.

According to KCNA (March 29), North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told an operation meeting that if the U.S. imperialists

No translation here during last weekend, as I had outsourced a bit of translation capacity by translating a small share in a cooperative English-language rendition of this Hong Kong-based television debate – original in Mandarin.

Interesting sample of how Chinese perception of the country’s role in the “global arena” is being created by the media.

Li Yuzhen, a businesswoman who has lived outside North Korea for more than thirty years, doesn’t expect another NK nuclear test soon. A close NK friend of her does, however. Click picture for details.

Maybe just in time before another North Korean nuclear test explodes into some superpower faces.

But then, maybe there won’t be a third North Korean nuclear test this month after all. Time will show.

Nuclear umbrella refers to a guarantee by a nuclear weapons state to defend a non-nuclear allied state. Wikipedia offers this definition, plus several existing examples.

The one regionally closest to this blogger is NATO – most European countries, including Germany, are non-nuclear states. Australia looks like an interesting example, too – their then prime minister John Gorton (reportedly) exasperated visiting U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk by telling him that he didn’t trust the Americans to keep their side of the treaty that underpinned Australia’s security, i. e. the ANZUS treaty.

That was in April 1968. At least, Rusk had probably long become used to overseas politicians who wanted to have some nukes of their own. Just to be juche sort of self-reliant.

Six years earlier than Gorton,West German defense minister Franz-Josef Strauss had wanted nukes for his country, too. He seemed to want them so badly that Henry Kissinger, who had talked with Strauss, apparently in May 1961, notified the U.S. government that American nuclear weapons in West Germany needed to be secured, so as to make it physically impossible (“physisch unmöglich”) [for the Germans] to take them, or to use them without U.S. consent. Strauss might simply take them, if he deemed that necessary.

The U.S. forces reacted by fortifying their nuclear bases, Der Spiegel suggested in January this year, drawing on the memory of former U.S. colonel Charles Sanford (now deceased). German greed for them apparently required the measure, in America’s view.

Either way, West German defense minister Franz-Josef Strauss was publicly advocating that the West German Bundeswehr should be given independent access to nuclear weapons, according to excerpts of “The Color of Truth” as published by the New York Times, apparently in 1999.

And one has to admit that Strauss was of great use as a great bogeyman – rightly or wrongly. Nineteen years after Kissinger, in 1980, the German social democrats were still afraid of Strauss.

All that even though Strauss had long since been relieved of his post as defense minister, to become a civil aviator and a math teacher:

I don’t know if Washington was worried by politicians beyond Australia and West Germany. But once you have such worries, you are a superpower.

While South Korea is generally switching to digital television, the South Korean government has reportedly agreed to maintain a system for the broadcasting of analogue TV signals,to enable people in North Korea to watch analogue South Korean television. North Koreans along the west coast of Hwanghae Province and the east coast of Gangwon Province are apparently the most likely (secret) audience of these television programs. The programs are also said to be within reach of an unspecified number of tv watchers in China’s northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning.

North Korea apparently never jammed these television broadcasts, as they just happened to spread across the border like radio waves do between every country. On the other hand, North Korea aggressively jams the South Korean government’s radio stationsspecifically targeted at the North, North Korea Tech wrote on Sunday. The South keeping up analog signals for a North Korean television audience while using digital signals for the audience at home might therefore be judged in Pyongyang as propaganda of the same category as the stations it already jams.

In another development, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in a televised speech on Tuesday, called for an end to the “confrontation” with South Korea. According to Voice of Russia, Kim Jong-un suggested the end to confrontation in a new year address, the first time in the past 19 years that a North Korean leader has offered New-Year wishes to the compatriots.